ture,
peculiarly fitted him for public life; and, back of his fascinating
manners, lay sound judgment and great familiarity with state affairs.
Like Seward, he possessed, in this respect, an advantage over older
members, and he was now to show something of the moral power which the
Auburn Senator displayed when he displeased the short-sighted
partisans who seemed to exist and to act only for the present.

In presenting his report Seymour was careful to sustain the pledges of
the act of 1842, and to condemn the pre-existing policy of creating
additional debts for the purpose of constructing new canals or
enlarging the Erie. With gentle and cunning skill he commended Azariah
C. Flagg's policy, adopted in 1835, of using only the surplus revenue
of the canals for such purposes. "The errors we have committed," said
his report, "are not without their utility or profitable teaching. The
corruptions of extravagance and the bitter consequences of
indebtedness, have produced their own correctives, and public opinion,
admonished by the past, has returned to its accustomed and healthful
channels, from which it will not be readily diverted. There is no
portion of our citizens who desire to increase our state indebtedness,
or to do aught to the detriment of our common interests, when they
are shown the evils that inevitably follow in the train of borrowing
large sums of money, to be repaid, perhaps, in periods of pecuniary
distress and embarrassment. Neither is it true, on the other hand,
that any considerable number of our citizens are opposed to the
extension of our canals when it can be effected by the aid of surplus
revenues."[324]

[Footnote 324: Jabez D. Hammond, _Political History of New York_, Vol.
3, p. 412.]

This last sentence was the keynote. Bouck had suggested the principle,
and other Conservatives had vainly tried to enforce it, but it
remained for Seymour to obtain for it a fair and candid hearing. With
great clearness, he unfolded the condition of the public works and of
the public finances, and, with able reasoning, he showed that, out of
the canal revenues, all the pledges of the act of 1842 could be met,
and out of the surplus revenues, all the pledges of the act of 1836
could be completed. At the conclusion, he introduced a bill providing
for the resumption of work along the lines set forth in the report.

The reports of Dennison and Seymour reduced the issue to its lowest
terms. Dennison wanted the surplus